


Let Your Arms Become Propellers

by birdbrains



Series: Propellers [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ableism, Anti Praise Kink, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Banter, Body Image, Dirty Talk, Disability, Dom/sub, Exhibitionism, Hair-pulling, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pinching, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Sadism, Slapping, Triggers, and aftereffects thereof, tiny dom steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 10:42:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4218648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdbrains/pseuds/birdbrains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Steve had learned that if you messed with someone--well, with Bucky, anyway--you could create the illusion of force."</p><p>Sorry this is Land of 1000 Tags but I think they cover everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1939

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Spitshine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spitshine/gifts).



> Hope this is okay, it's a lot of firsts for me (exchange, porn, pre-war), but the prompt for "tiny brutal dom Steve" carried me away on an avalanche of feels, and here we are. This is like 50% bdsm and 50% disability feels--the 1939 chapter could probably be read on its own though and has a higher bdsm-to-disability-feels ratio, if that is your preference.
> 
> On Anti Praise Kink: I was curious to see how verbally cold and mean Steve could be to Bucky, before I felt uncomfortable writing it. The answer is very! Hopefully it doesn't come off as grimdark or abusive, that wasn't my intent.

“Maybe I should get these tattooed,” Steve said, “to stop you from running around with everyone.”

“No...complaints,” Bucky gasped. Steve had laid him out on the kitchen floor, on his stomach, and was having a pretty good time pinching and twisting the skin on the back of his thighs. He was perfectly capable of drawing blood, if he scratched really hard, but what he mostly liked was leaving bruises.

Steve was really consistent with his work, so the scratches and bruises would often come out looking like a pattern on a dress. The next morning he caught Bucky standing naked with his back to the mirror, craning his head around to look at the marks from the day before.

He didn’t have much nice to say to Bucky, or to anyone else, but he was flattered and felt himself soften a little. He couldn’t help saying, “I’m glad you like it,” and pulling Bucky away so he could kiss him without risking seeing them together in the mirror. That would have immediately killed his buzz.

“Of course I like it,” Bucky said, and then whimpered a little when Steve squeezed the back of his leg. “ _Fuck_ , Steve, you’re so good to me.”

Sometimes Steve felt like Bucky didn’t know what the word “good” meant. He squeezed harder, sticking his nails in where they’d been the day before, and Bucky whined and clung so hard to him that he almost knocked Steve over. “Give me a sec,” Steve said, and walked them backwards a few feet so he could lean against the wall while he scratched and pinched Bucky’s bruises.

He had to admit it felt nice, and not like being overpowered in any way. Bucky was wrapped around him, and yeah, he was bigger than Steve was, of course; but he was trembling, and he had his face pushed into Steve’s shoulder. Steve pressed on the bruises with his right hand, and pulled Bucky’s hair with his left. He pulled Bucky’s head back so he could see his expression. Bucky had his eyes closed, so Steve gave his hair a harder yank.

“No,” Steve said. “You look at me when I’m hurting you. What, you’re embarrassed?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, with a pained smile. It looked really good on him.

“What are you embarrassed about? No, _don’t_ _look away_.” Steve yanked his hair again, and Bucky yelped--he was tearing up a little, which also was very appealing. “Tell me about how you’re feeling.”

“Do I have to?” Bucky said. Steve didn’t even bother hurting him for that; he just looked at him. “I’m embarrassed,” Bucky said.

“I got that. How come?”

“Because--” Steve gave Bucky’s leg an especially hard pinch and twist, and Bucky’s face screwed up with pain. He almost closed his eyes in the process, but he caught himself. “Shit, sorry, sorry, I’m opening my eyes, I’m looking at you, Steve, sorry, I’m always gonna look at you.” He looked so distressed, and was forcing his eyes so wide open, that Steve couldn’t help laughing. He stroked Bucky, a little, where he’d been pinching him. Although probably any contact hurt at this point. Things just got more fun the more banged up Bucky got.

It was a good habit, bruising him up--like how washing the dishes after dinner means you have an easier time at breakfast. It was like Steve was giving himself a present he could enjoy the next day. He felt like Bucky was being pretty okay about things, so he pulled him back down and kissed him fairly gently. Not super gently. It wasn’t like Bucky had done anything really special, and he’d still failed to answer a simple question. So just as he felt Bucky relaxing into the kiss and the short-term absence of pain, Steve bit his lip hard.

“What, I looked at you, I was being good!” Bucky said.

“God, stop whining,” Steve said. “If you were being good I would tell you.”

“You never tell me,” Bucky said.

“Wow, I wonder why that could be,” Steve said. “Just answer the fucking question. What’s embarrassing about what I’m doing right now?” He pinched Bucky a little more to remind him what they were talking about.

“I...” Bucky hesitated. He honestly looked like he was trying to talk, but finally he said, weakly, “I can’t talk about it, Steve. I can’t.”  He put his head down.

“Well, okay,” Steve said. He released Bucky and went over to the kitchen. “Why don’t you stand in the corner,” he said, getting a few pieces of bread out of the wrapper, “with your face to the wall.”

“Okay,” Bucky said.

“Obviously okay, that’s not really in question, is it?” Steve said. He put his bread in the toaster. “You’re not getting any toast, by the way.”

“Seems fair.”

“Do yourself like I was doing,” Steve said. He leaned against the counter and watched Bucky’s hands knead the bruises on the back of his thighs. Bucky didn’t have Steve’s fine motor skills--it was pretty much the only area of anything that Steve was better at than anyone else. But he was systematic about what he was doing, and Steve knew his hands wouldn’t get tired like Steve’s sometimes did.

“Ow, ow, _ow_ ,” Bucky said softly, but he didn’t let up.

“You’re doing fine,” Steve said. “Nice to know there’s a few orders you can follow.”

“I can follow--most of them,” Bucky said. “Ow.”

“You can stop,” Steve said. “Stay like you are.” He started stacking his toast on a plate and putting butter to melt in between the slices. “I don’t believe that for a minute though, Bucky. A dog can follow more orders than you can.”

“I mean,” Bucky said. “That’s probably true? But a dog’s not as good at getting fucked as I am, so every cloud has a silver lining.” He wiggled his backside at Steve. It was nice to think about how painful it would be for him to get fucked, how every thrust would hit him on his bruises and make him cry out. Steve could yell at him for crying, too.

“No, you’re mostly cloud,” Steve said. He put some jelly on top of one of the buttered slices--Bucky was a real hog about that sort of thing. Steve didn’t see what you needed two condiments for. He clicked his tongue and Bucky came over and got on his knees for him.

Steve held out the toast for him to eat. He didn’t have a particular attachment to doing this with Bucky on his knees--he did for some things, but for this, it would be kind of fun to hold him from behind. Actually, he thought about that position often--there were lots of things Steve would have liked doing that way, if he were just tall enough to put his head over Bucky’s shoulder and whisper in his ear. If wishes were horses. Bucky had gotten to the end of the toast and was sucking on Steve’s fingers. Steve raised his eyebrows at him. “Sorry,” Bucky said. He sat down there while Steve leaned against the counter eating the rest of the toast.

///

Steve got it out of him, about a week later, when they were fucking. Bucky was good at getting fucked, no question, although that wasn’t really an accurate description of what they did. Steve had the joints of a grandpa, more or less--Bucky had said this one time, and Steve didn’t hit him or snap at him or anything, which was maybe what Bucky was aiming for. When Steve just shrugged, Bucky said he was sorry, that he didn’t mean it.

It was true though. Steve wasn’t really in shape to throw anyone around, or hold someone down, or even do a lot of thrusting. He was stiff most of the time. Bucky had to do all the work.

Steve was grateful, of course, for how well they were able to work that out between them. It never felt like Bucky was in charge or anything. Steve would lie back with his head propped on the back of his arm, and he’d give Bucky instructions. If he wanted to get on with it he’d be general--“Strip,” “Slick yourself up,” “Sit on my dick”--but usually he liked being extremely specific and detailed.

Bucky was pretty well trained when it came to that. He knew that when Steve said, “Take off your shoes,” he wasn’t to take his socks off. Sometimes Steve would do things like telling him to keep one sock on, or take all his clothes off and then put his tie back on; he wanted Bucky to pay attention. He didn’t tell Bucky if he did anything wrong, but Bucky knew that Steve was keeping track of it and that if he screwed up it would come back to bite him. Steve wouldn’t let him come at the last minute, or he’d try and ruin it--he’d take his hand away just as Bucky was coming, or start talking about something unappealing. Bucky would sob with frustration, and Steve would say, “Sorry, but you took your pants off before your jacket.”

That kind of thing didn’t happen much anymore. Bucky was pretty good, Steve thought, touching himself a little lazily while Bucky stood in front of him and waited for the next direction. And he was good at acting like the whole thing wasn’t farcical, him following Steve’s orders when a strong wind could probably snap him in half.

“Are you okay?” Bucky said.

“I’m just thinking,” Steve said. “I didn’t realize we were doing this on your schedule.”

“Sorry,” Bucky said. “We’re not. I just--”

“What,” Steve said.

“Please,” Bucky said. “I need you inside me pretty bad, so--I mean, not my choice, but it would be so _good_ , Steve.”

“I don’t see why you always got to be so impatient,” Steve said. “You’ve only been standing there for, what--” he checked his watch-- “seven minutes? Why don’t you just stay there and watch me jerk off?” Bucky winced. “My hand’s just as good as your asshole--it’s certainly cleaner.”

“My asshole is clean!” Bucky protested. “It’s really clean, Steve, I always clean up for you.” Steve was a little surprised by how hurt he looked. He hadn’t thought Bucky was that softened up yet, but apparently standing and waiting had really gotten to him. “Come on, please,” Bucky said. “Let me show you how clean it is.”

“That’s okay,” Steve said. “I’ll just use my hand.”

“ _Please_ ,” Bucky said. He swayed a little where he was standing but he knew better than to get on his knees when he’d been told to stay still. “Why don’t we--look, maybe I could just slick you up a little and not do anything to myself, so it’ll hurt me more? I’ll sit on you really fast. It’d be really rough, I bet I’d scream--wouldn’t you like that?”

“Well, okay,” Steve said. “You can finish getting undressed.”

“ _Thank_ you, Steve,” Bucky said, scrambling out of the clothes he’d still been wearing. Steve couldn’t help chuckling and Bucky gave him a look. “What?”

“I was already going to fuck you, stupid--you just signed away your prep for no reason.”

“Oh, well,” Bucky said. If he’d been in a normal frame of mind he might have put on more irritation, but he was already kind of flushed and cuddly. More than anything he was relieved that he was going to get to do what he was best at. He was good like that. Bucky always wanted to be helpful.

What’s more helpful than giving a hand to someone who’s practically a cripple, Steve thought. But Bucky was standing there waiting in the pile of his clothes, so he put that stuff aside in his mind and said, “Okay, get the Vaseline, come over and put it on me.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Bucky said with a big stupid grin that made Steve forget all his ungrateful thoughts. He came over to the bed and waited while Steve kicked his pants off; then he knelt next to him. “Can I--”

“Just one lick or we’ll never get going,” Steve said.

Bucky leaned over and gave Steve’s cock such a long, thorough stroke with his tongue that Steve felt like it was cheating; but there was the smile again, keeping him from being as harsh as he’d like to be. “It’s so good,” Bucky said, “my favorite, I’m so fucking lucky I’m going to get it _inside me_ , Steve--”

“Can you stop talking and get it ready,” Steve said. He covered his face with his hand so Bucky wouldn’t see how much it was getting to him. He was painfully hard so it was kind of a lost cause, but he felt like letting someone see it on your dick wasn’t as bad as letting them see the loss of control on your face. He got a little bit of his finger between his teeth so he didn’t make any noise while Bucky was stroking him up and down with the Vaseline. Then he fucking _twitched_ , like an idiot, so he said, “Well, you better get on it.”

“Which way do you want me?” Bucky said.

“Facing away,” Steve said. Bucky put his knees on either side of Steve’s legs and tried to reach up to spread himself open, but Steve said, “No, I’m gonna open you up, okay?”

“Mm, please,” Bucky said, “that’s great,” and Steve felt himself dizzy with stupid tenderness at how soft Bucky sounded. This was doubtless the first of several times he’d be glad that Bucky couldn’t see his face.

“Can you reach the Vaseline?” Steve said.

“What do you take me for?” Bucky said. “I’m not gonna lose the Vaseline.” He nudged it towards Steve with his fingers. He leaned over, bracing himself on his hands; his face brushed Steve’s ankles.

Steve thought about trying to get Bucky to kiss his feet--Steve was wearing a pair of sort of grungy socks, so it would be funny to see if Bucky would do it and how he’d act about it--but they were never going to get anywhere unless Steve focused.

He put his fingers in the Vaseline and spread it around and inside Bucky’s hole. Bucky immediately started protesting. “Steve, I said I’d go without. You don’t have to.”

“Well, I don’t want to hurt you,” Steve said, just to see what Bucky would make of that.

Bucky was softened up enough that he didn’t even laugh. “Please, Steve, it’s okay to want to hurt me. I want you to have what you want, okay? Please, I just need it however you want to do it, okay?”

He was shaking. “Hush,” Steve said. He petted him with his other hand, down his back and ass and the top of his thigh. “S’okay. I’m gonna fuck you, okay?”

“Okay,” Bucky said. Steve could feel he was pressing his face down onto the bed while Steve slicked him up.

“You know, it’s not so bad in this asshole after all,” Steve said. “Thanks for cleaning it up for me.”

Bucky made a little agreeable noise.

“I mean, obviously it’s kind of required, since it’s mine.” Bucky shivered and Steve petted him again. “Okay, sit up, stop hiding in the bed. Pull yourself open and sit on me, okay?”

“Okay,” Bucky said. He sat up and held himself up on his knees, holding his ass open with his hands; Steve put one hand on him, lightly, to help him line himself up with the head of Steve’s cock. He steered Bucky down on to it, and when Bucky sank all the way down he yelped. Steve wouldn’t fuck him dry, but he hadn’t given him a lot of time to prepare.

“Don’t whine,” Steve said. He could feel Bucky was pretty tensed up, inside and outside, so he just laid still under him and stroked little circles in the curve of Bucky’s lower back.

He’d be hard pressed to say what he liked better; the feel of Bucky’s insides relaxing around his dick, or the tension going out of his back and legs as he calmed down. Bucky went a little limp, and he reached out and rubbed Steve’s knee affectionately, the way Steve was rubbing his back. “Thanks for putting it in me, Steve,” he said quietly, “you know I love you--”

“You have a funny way of showing it, sitting on me like a dead fish,” Steve said. He felt it when Bucky laughed.

“You put dead fish on your dick?” he said, but he started moving the way Steve liked. “Well, I bet those dead fish love you as much as I do, or they love getting fucked by you, anyway. Have to be fucking crazy not to.”

“I don’t even do anything,” Steve said despite himself.

“You do everything,” Bucky said. “Would I be on here if not for you?”

“Well--”

“No? Then you’re doing it.”

It was actually a good thing they were talking about something shitty, or Steve might have gone off as soon as Bucky started moving on him. It was true he didn’t listen sometimes, but really, he was pretty good a lot of the time; and he had riding Steve down to a science. Steve put his hands on Bucky’s hips, and when Bucky sighed happily, he dug his nails in.

“Oh, God, Steve,” Bucky said. “I’m not--I don’t know if I can make it if you do that.”

“That’s fine,” Steve said. “You’re not in trouble. Let me jerk you off though, yeah?”

“ _Mm_ ,” Bucky said, and sat still and waited while Steve got his hand wet and reached around to touch him. He paused before he made contact, though. “Steve,” Bucky said.

“I got a question for you,” Steve said.

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky said. Steve didn’t have to see him to know how hard he was glaring. Steve just didn’t say or do anything--he counted the seconds in his head--and then Bucky said, “Steve, I’ll answer, I’m sorry, okay, I’ll tell you anything, just touch me.”          

“How come you don’t like to look at me when I’m hurting you?”

“Oh, God, Steve, I’ll look at you next time, I’m sorry. I looked at you last time.”

“But how come?” Steve said. He was going to have to drop it; he couldn’t stretch this moment out that long.

“‘Cause I don’t want you to see it on my face, Steve, how much I like it, okay? Shit, please, just--I just get embarrassed, okay, because I feel like you can see how much I need you to be hard on me, and--please, Steve, this is really rough on me, please don’t tease me, _please_.”

“Okay,” Steve said. “Move when I touch you.” He wrapped his hand around Bucky’s dick, and Bucky tensed so badly that Steve knew he was about a second away. “You better like it, since it’s the only thing you’re good for,” he said, since he thought it would make Bucky come. He was right, and that pushed him over himself--Bucky spasming around him and making a weak little noise in his throat, as if Steve had injured him.

When Steve was finished he said, “You can come up here, Buck. There’ll be no washing up tonight.” It wasn’t mean of him to have Bucky lie on the sheets all sticky and wet, because Steve would probably be the one to end up doing the laundry. And Bucky wouldn’t mind sleeping dirty--he was incredibly fussy about personal grooming, except when it came to sex, in which case he was pretty much the opposite and hated to have Steve’s come washed out of him. Like Steve had expected he made one of his happy little noises and climbed off of him and nuzzled up to his chest. “Pull the bedclothes up, dumbass,” Steve said.

“You weren’t calling it dumb when you were in it!” Bucky said, but he sat up and got them covered up properly.

“I’m happy to call your ass dumb, Buck,” Steve said, “regardless of what’s in it. It’s not like the presence of my dick makes it any smarter.” He laid on his side and Bucky squished up behind him, not putting his arms over Steve but just pushing his face into the back of Steve’s neck.

“Love you, Steve,” Bucky said--he was probably trying to speak softly and gently, but the location of his mouth made it sound like he was yelling in to Steve’s good ear with a bullhorn. Steve flinched.

“Ugh,” he said.

“I do, though, Steve, you’re the best,” Bucky said, rubbing his face on Steve’s head. “Every day I wonder how I got so lucky as to get to be friends with you and to get you doing this stuff to me and...”

He paused for breath, but Steve wasn’t having any more of that stuff, which he was pretty sure was just intended to prop up Steve’s fragile little crippled ego. “More like you wonder how you pissed off God bad enough to get stuck with me,” Steve said.

Bucky made a noise like he was so shocked and Steve wanted to shove him. “That’s not funny,” he said.

“Wasn’t _being_ funny,” Steve said.

“Steve, come on, don’t--just don’t be like that, okay? I hate knowing you think stuff like that.”

Now Bucky was trying to get face to face with him so he could be earnest. Steve buried his face in his pillow, lifting his mouth off enough to say, “You’re whining, Buck, I always tell you not to whine and here you are again.”

“Steve, come on,” Bucky said, but he was giving up on the topic. Good.

“I just don’t want to talk about that bullshit,” Steve said.

“But you--” Bucky sighed. “Well, you brought it up, but okay, let’s never speak of it again.”

“Good,” Steve said. He laid with his face half in the pillow, and felt Bucky settling big and warm up against him again. Bucky was rubbing his face into Steve’s neck again, like a cat. “Stop wiping your snotty nose on me, I’m not a handkerchief,” Steve said, but he didn’t do anything about it.


	2. 1941

If Steve never had to see Harold Corner again, it would be too soon. Of course, there was nothing really wrong with him--unless you counted everything. He wasn’t rude or nasty to Steve, except that when Steve began talking, Harry would look a little startled, like a table had spoken. If Steve made a joke, Harry’s laugh was surprised, too. It hadn’t occurred to him that Steve might be clever.Steve imagined him saying to Bucky, “Well, I’ll be--can it tell time too?”

Honestly, it was hardly an exaggeration at all. “Steve taught himself French,” Bucky said, “practically with no help from anyone, just books and checking in with our neighbors. They didn’t give him lessons or anything--he’d just go up and start talking and see if they understood him or not. It only took him a few months and now he sounds just like they do!”

“Well, I sound like them to you,” Steve said, “because you don’t speak French.”

Bucky had started talking in his usual happy way about Steve, like everyone in the world was in agreement that Steve was a fine specimen of humanity. In reality, no one had ever talked like that about Steve except for his mother and Bucky.

He didn’t blame his mother; if you gave birth to someone and raised them, it would be hard to admit when that person turned out to be worthless. Bucky had no excuse to be so deluded, and for what it was worth, Steve didn’t really think he was. Bucky wasn’t stupid. He was working on something--Steve didn’t know what, maybe trying to be nice, trying to annoy or confuse people, he wasn’t sure. Because people did look really confused sometimes when Bucky went on about Steve, and Steve couldn’t even imagine how much more confused they allowed themselves to look when he wasn’t around.

“Steve never did well in school--sorry, Steve--I think he was just bored, weren’t you? And they wouldn’t put you where you could see. But now he reads all the time and makes me feel like I’m too stupid to live,” Bucky said.

“It must be nice having so much free time,” Harry said.

“I don’t, really,” Steve said. They were all waiting at the corner; when the bus appeared, Steve clambered onto it ahead of the other two. Steve had finished his commission and come to meet Bucky at the bank where he worked, but he hadn’t planned for Harry to tag along with them.

In theory, Steve was glad Bucky had someone he liked at the bank. He’d hated all the other clerks--well, hated them in Bucky’s way of hating people, which meant they thought he liked them, and he’d never be so crass as to even tell Steve he hated them outright. But he found them boring and un-clever, and Bucky came home a lot happier when Harry started working there. They had a good joking rhythm, and they liked to go out together after work.

Steve had to replay a movie of this in his head so he could keep it together when Harry said, “But you don’t work, right? You can’t work.”

“I work,” Steve said so quickly he was embarrassed, at the same time as Bucky said, “Steve works. He’s an illustrator.”

“Oh, illustrating,” Harry said.

“I work as many hours as either of you,” Steve said, “and I make just as much.” He was getting stupidly fired up, and he noticed Bucky shot him a nervous glance. At least no one else on the bus was attending to the spectacle of a spindly little guy blowing his top. Steve was grateful; he knew he looked funny when he was angry.

“I misunderstood. Bucky said you were home a lot.”

“His studio’s at home,” Bucky said. “He does it at home and mails it in. He’s always working.”

“Well, it’s good you keep busy,” Harry said, and then as if God was intentionally kicking Steve when he was down, the bus went around a sharp turn. Steve was just getting over a flu and his balance was shot to hell, so he proceeded to fall into an old lady carrying several shopping bags.

Not only did she stay up--she had better balance than he did--but she wasn’t even mad. “Is he all right?” she asked Harry and Bucky, while Steve was trying to get himself under control. She probably thought Steve was too stupid to talk, when really, he was very good at apologizing to the people he fell on, usually. It just couldn’t have come at a worse time.

“Hey, Steve, there’s a seat here,” Bucky said, trying to steer Steve over to the window. Steve was pretty sure someone had given the seat up for him.

“You better get him home, pal,” some guy said to Bucky. “Get him something to eat.”

That guy clearly thought Steve was drunk, which would have been nice. Steve had definitely considered that life might be easier through a haze of alcohol, but it gave him headaches. “I don’t need to sit down,” he said.

“Steve, come on,” Bucky said.

“Yeah, you ought to sit down, Steve,” Harry said.

“I’m fine,” Steve said. “The turn surprised me.”

Steve was hoping that Harry would get off the bus pretty soon, but it turned out his stop was after Steve and Bucky’s. So Steve got to spend ten thrilling minutes being alternately asked about his illustration work--which Harry seemed to think was some kind of busywork to make Steve feel useful--and pestered to sit down, when the empty seat would have been just as well used by someone who was actually still sick, not getting over it, or more crippled than Steve.

He was getting so annoyed, though, that it was contributing to his dizziness, and pretty soon he wished he could sit down. He wouldn't let himself crack, though. Bucky just looked at him, a long silent look.

It was about a block home from the bus stop and halfway down the block, Steve couldn’t help saying, “So your friend must think you’re some kind of a saint, I guess.”

“I’m so sorry, Steve,” Bucky said.

“I don’t care what he thinks,” Steve said.

“I know.”

“Why’d you tell him I don’t go to work?”

Bucky sighed. “I honestly don’t even remember, Steve. I’m sorry.” He unlocked the door of their building. “For some reason I had cause to tell him you’re home most of the time, and that you’re--I think I mentioned you were in the hospital at Easter. I never said that you don’t work, obviously, since you do.”

There’d just been a little time when they started living together that Steve didn’t work and Bucky covered on the rent. Maybe a few months, and years and years ago now, before Steve started finding things that he could do, so he could contribute even if he couldn’t be running around the city most days. Freelance stuff worked really well. He could stay in, which helped especially if it was cold or wet; and when he was okay (which was most of the time) he could build up a buffer for when he was really sick.

“He’s not a bad guy. He just doesn’t know any better,” Bucky said. “Just ignorant, you know,” and Steve wanted to say it was easy to forgive things that weren’t about you. Bucky was so gentle and magnanimous, and that wasn’t Steve’s way at all; but there were reasons for that. It wasn’t just an accident of character.

///

It was too bad, because Steve had had plans for the night; it was half the reason he’d come to collect Bucky even though he was off his game. He was glad he hadn’t had a chance to say anything about it, because--well, it hardly made sense, being too angry to hurt someone. But it was more like he was too clearheaded.

Steve wasn’t always in a bad mood, the way people said--even Bucky said it, which pissed Steve off, though he was more sympathetic about it than other people were. He’d be sort of ineffectual--"Come on Steve, just forget about that,” delivered very gently, knowing it was never going to happen.

It wasn’t that Steve was always in a bad mood--honestly, he tried to enjoy himself, but he was always being reminded of things that bothered him or things that were unfair. Important things, principled things, but also things like the way he looked and what people thought of him.

Bucky was too polite to outright say, “What a shithead,” or something, even about people who weren’t his friends. He would always take the line that they were wrong, of course, but Steve shouldn't care so much. “He doesn’t realize how he comes off.” “She thought she was being helpful.” “She hasn’t been the same since her daughter died, Steve, give her a break.” “You got to be the bigger person.”

“Well,” Steve said, “I’m not.”

Now he was sitting shirtless in bed and Bucky in his pajamas was smearing menthol across Steve’s chest. Steve could do it himself but Bucky liked to do it for some stupid reason, and usually Steve would take it in the spirit in which he assumed it was meant. Bucky did a lot of unnecessary things for Steve, and sometimes it felt like being in charge, and sometimes he thought about people saying how nice Bucky was to take care of that sick boy.

It was like slipping a pair of colored glasses on, he sometimes thought. It put him in a bad mood to think about it that way, but it was obvious sometimes--that it was just a delusion Bucky indulged him in. It was a false way of looking at the world.

There was a time when he was younger, when they’d started a few years ago, that it had actually made Steve feel better. When he felt low he would think about Bucky lying on the floor next to their bed, straining up to kiss his hand, that adoring, gutted look. He still liked it when he was doing it, but thinking about it later embarrassed him more than anything. When he wasn’t caught up in it, it seemed like a pathetic thing for him to want--but also somehow typical. Of course he wouldn’t be able to live in the real world.

It wasn’t like he thought Bucky didn’t honestly go for the whole thing, but he just thought other guys could have done it to him better. It was a lot of work for Bucky to follow Steve’s orders instead of having someone who could actually throw him across the room like Steve wanted to--Steve thought it would be nice if he could just grab Bucky and knock him on the floor and hold him there--and Bucky could fight back without having to worry he might actually win--

“What are you thinking about?” Bucky said.

“Nothing.”

“Are you scheming?” Bucky said, as if it was just occurring to him. He laid on his stomach so he could look up at Steve plaintively through his eyelashes.

“No, I’m not,” Steve said.

“Oh well, wishful thinking,” Bucky said. “Can I suck your dick?”

“No,” Steve said. “Why?”

“No idea why I would ask to do that. You only _never_ let me, even though it’s practically my favorite food--”

“Well, if you consider it food then I’m definitely not putting it in your mouth,” Steve said.

“I didn’t mean that,” Bucky said. “I--believe me, Steve, I remember what happens if I use my teeth.”

Steve’s hands shook a little at the memory, but he just said, “Still, your convincing skills are kind of weak. You shouldn’t call it food.”

“You didn’t mention that when you taught me to suck you,” Bucky said. Again a sweet, sharp little jolt went through Steve’s body when he remembered the training. That, too, had been a few years ago, when things were always fun. “Hey,” Bucky said, “remember how bad you used to hide me for gagging?”

He’d laid on his back, with his head on Steve’s collarbone. He was going to have menthol in his hair. “That was only a few times,” Steve said. He put his hand in Bucky’s hair too, and when he gently ran his fingers along the scalp Bucky gasped like Steve had actually done something. “You caught on pretty fast.”

“You never wear that belt anymore,” Bucky said.

“It’s ugly. I got a better one.”

“I miss seeing it--seeing it on you when I could still feel it on me.” Bucky stretched like a cat and rubbed the back of his head into Steve’s shoulder. “Love you, Steve.”

“Okay, okay,” Steve said. “Don’t you ever shut up about it?”

“But I do,” Bucky said. He turned his head and kissed Steve’s neck, tingly and slow. It did feel good. Sometimes Bucky would just kiss and suck all over Steve when he was sore, and even though it didn’t make it stop hurting, it did kind of turn his brain around so the pain didn’t bother him as much. “Am I not good at sucking your dick anymore?”

“You’re fine.”

“You think maybe I need to be trained again?”

Jesus. At this point Steve was equal parts aroused and guilty. Not that he was really worried that Bucky might think he was bad at blowjobs, because that was impossible, but because he was so sweet. He always was, with no particular goal or profit, and Steve didn’t deserve it.

He took ahold of Bucky’s hair and used it to pull him up and kiss him gently. He didn’t pull hard once he had him where he wanted him, just held him in place while with his other hand he reached under Bucky’s shirt and petted his back.

You wouldn’t think Steve would like being on the bottom, but it gave him more access to parts of Bucky he wanted to touch, and he liked when Bucky had more range of movement. When he had the room he was always squirming and shivering and arching his back, which Steve suspected was a little bit of a put on to entertain him. But it had the desired effect, so Steve couldn’t blame him.

“What’s all this cuddly stuff?” Bucky said, pulling back and squinting at him. “What did you do with Steve?”

He hadn’t realized that Steve was still holding a pretty big clump of his hair; his face twisted with pain when Steve pulled it. “Okay, asshole,” Steve said pleasantly, “I’d’ve been happy to just kiss you and touch you like a _normal_ person--” Bucky giggled-- “but since you complained, you can get on your back and keep your mouth shut.”

Bucky rolled right off him and lay on his back--very still, though Steve hadn’t specified that. Steve crawled over him and just looked down at him, leaning on his hands. He used one hand to stroke Bucky’s hair back from his face; the gesture had quite a different flavor than it would have a minute before. Bucky was following Steve’s hand with his eyes. Good. It was hard not to want to do everything to him, when he was so easy to get to. Steve just clamped a hand over his nose and mouth, cutting off his breathing.

He was in a position where he could see the clock, but he didn’t really have a great sense for how long he should be doing this. He’d tried on himself before, thinking it might come in handy, but he was kind of an imperfect lab rat for things he wanted to do to Bucky. The trouble went in two directions--he was physically weaker, but also less mentally impressed by discomfort.

Steve had read most people could hold their breath for at least half a minute, but he decided to let Bucky off early since he hadn’t had any warning before Steve cut off his air. It was probably right--Bucky’s eyes were wild when Steve took his hand off him, and he gasped for breath. He reached up and squeezed Steve’s arm.

“You’re fine,” Steve told him. He was more than fine, he was getting his perfect soft look. “Give me your wrist,” Steve told him. Bucky raised the back of his wrist up to Steve’s mouth, and Steve took the skin between his teeth and bit as hard as he could. Bucky made cloudy, choked noises, but didn’t pull his hand away; Steve had trained that into him too. He had to accept what Steve did to him, and he wasn’t allowed to try and get away from it.

“I wonder what you want,” Steve said, once he’d let Bucky have his hand back. “Too bad you can’t tell me about it, huh? Guess we’ll just have to do what I want instead.” Bucky made one of the little keening sounds he relied on this kind of circumstance. It wasn’t really allowed, but it was so cute that he always got away with it.

Steve looked back up at the clock. He had half an hour before Jim Wells, who lived one building down from them, was coming home from work. Steve’s abandoned plans for the night were very time- and date-sensitive, and the stars might not align for them again. He decided to un-abandon them.

“I have something for you,” he said to Bucky, who at this point was looking dopey. Which was good--this wouldn’t work if he was in a normal frame of mind. “You won’t like it. It’s going to upset you.”

Bucky, bless his heart, just picked his head up and rubbed his hair against Steve’s face. “What are you doing, shit-for-brains?” Steve said. “Trying to choke me with your hair? Oh, you’ll do whatever I want you to, won’t you?” He laid on top of him for a minute and felt Bucky wrap around him--warm and nice with his face rubbing on Steve like he was trying to hide inside him.

“Okay,” Steve said. “You’re ready like you are. Put your shoes on.” Steve threw on a shirt and a pair of shoes, and put his bathrobe on over his pajamas. He found the green handkerchief that was stupidly long unless you were using it for a blindfold--which, lucky for Steve, he was. He knelt up on the bed to tie the blindfold on Bucky, who was sitting on the edge waiting to be told to get up. “You can talk. Can you see at all?”

“Little bit of light,” Bucky said.

“That’s fine. Up. Come on.” Bucky got up and let Steve take his arm and lead him; even though he was allowed to talk, he still didn’t ask questions. He had to know that Steve was leading him out of their apartment and up the hall of the building and through another door, but he just leaned toward Steve a little bit--not hard, not really putting his weight on him, but attuned to him. “You’re all right,” Steve said. When he started up the back stairs, Steve braced himself on the wall because he knew Bucky was going to trip and stumble and he wanted to let that happen. It did happen; when Bucky walked into the stairs he nearly fell down. Steve caught him and said, “Come _on_ , hurry up.”

“Steve,” Bucky said, a little reedily.

“I’m here,” Steve said. “Hurry up.”

After another flight and a half of stairs, Steve opened the door and led Bucky on to the roof. Then he led him around a little more--mostly to get him right where they needed to do this, but also to confuse him a little more. When Bucky said, “Steve, where are we?” in a tremulous voice, Steve knew he had hit the jackpot. Thank God Bucky got so fuzzy or he could never have pulled this off.

“Where do you think you are, shit-for-brains?” he asked.

“I--outside,” Bucky said. “It’s cold.”

“Oh, very good,” Steve said. “It’s cold and windy, so we must be outside. Do you know the alphabet too?” When Bucky didn’t say anything, Steve shook his arm roughly. “I asked you a question.”

“I know the alphabet,” Bucky said softly.

“Why does that surprise me?” Steve said. He let go of Bucky’s arm and stepped back. “Get your clothes off.” Bucky didn’t move, and Steve said, “Look, you know what happens when you make me repeat myself.”

“Steve, we’re outside,” Bucky said.

“So? It’s April, you’re not gonna freeze.”

“Can anyone see me?”

“What do you care?” Steve said. “I told you to do it.” Bucky just stood there, so Steve held on to the back of his hair and slapped him--not hard, just firmly--in the face. “Get your clothes off. Don’t you dare make me say it again.”

Bucky shed his clothes--quickly, clumsily--and stepped out of his shoes. He stood there shivering, hunched over a little. He was also hard, so Steve judged things were proceeding pretty well.

Steve took his arms and guided him a foot and a half over to the side. He needed to keep Bucky in a certain area of the roof or people really would be able to see him. Right now, he was sufficiently hidden by the stairs, and the only apartments within a view of him were those of Jim Wells, who was still at work, and the Morrisons, who would be visiting Mrs. Morrison’s mother for another two days.

“Bucky,” Steve said slowly, still holding him by the arms, “are you gonna keep doing what I tell you?” Bucky nodded. “You need that, right? It’s real hard for you when nobody gives you orders, ‘cause you’re not all that bright, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” Bucky said. “I’m stupid and I n-need you.”

It did Steve’s frail heart a world of good when a few tears leaked out from under the blindfold. He pulled Bucky down to kiss him--he knew from experience that if he was being really hard on Bucky he should intersperse the meanness with little smidgens of comfort, little rewards. Once Bucky relaxed, Steve released him and said, “Okay, bend over and grab your ankles.” Bucky did it immediately and Steve stepped away from him and went quiet for a minute. He didn’t want to take long enough that Bucky would start to panic--he needed reassurance that Steve was still with him--but he wanted Bucky to think about how exposed he looked right now. “So how’s the wind feel inside your asshole?” he asked. “Be specific--don’t just say cold.”

“It’s really _fucking_ cold, Steve,” Bucky said weakly.

“Aww,” Steve said. “Here, let me see if I can make some more room in there.” He leaned on the stairwell and unscrewed the tin of Vaseline that he had in his bathrobe pocket, clicking his tongue so Bucky would get down on his hands and knees. He put his wet fingers on Bucky’s hip so he’d know Steve was there, then pushed two of them inside him--pretty gently, so he knew the grunt Bucky made was from something other than pain.

“It would be pretty funny if someone saw you like this, wouldn’t it, Buck?” he said conversationally. “It’s what you really are, isn’t it? It’s what you’re best at.” Bucky made an unintelligible noise. “No, don’t try to talk, show me. Show me what you’re best at.”

Bucky pushed back on his fingers and--fuck, it was so funny how he nearly felt a phantom sensation of pleasure around his dick. “God, you’re pathetic. You just go crazy when you’re empty, don’t you? Walking around all day with nothing inside your hole. You poor stupid thing. You feel better now, don’t you?”

Steve stopped moving his fingers, and waited. “I,” Bucky said, and Steve waited a little more--it was hard for him to talk sometimes, not always, but when he was especially shaken up. “More, please?”

“More fingers, or harder?”

“Both. Please.”

“Here,” Steve said. “How’s this? Are you nodding? You realize I’m behind you, right?”

“Sorry. Yes. It’s--it’s really good, Steve, _please_ \--”

Steve had four fingers in him now--it wasn’t a ton, he had small hands--which was actually one thing he was grateful for, because he could get one of them pretty deep inside Bucky. But there was no need for that now. Bucky probably knew on some level that Steve would never do this out in public, but the shame of the idea was really doing the trick. He cried and whined as he fucked himself back onto Steve’s hand. “Aw, hey,” Steve said. “You poor little thing. What would you do without me?”

Bucky made a sweet soft noise, and Steve loved that so much it hurt. He loved that it was for him, but often something twisted inside him, made him angry because he didn’t feel like Bucky could really like it that much. He felt angry at himself for how much he wanted it, how much he longed to feel confident that Bucky was really his. It was weak to want something that was so unrealistic. It made him feel mean in a different way.

“Of course, maybe it doesn’t have to be me,” he continued, in the spirit of that particular meanness. “Or maybe I’m not enough, right? Okay, stop moving, let me do it.” He’d gotten a good feel for what angle Bucky wanted, and he’d let go easier if he didn’t have to think about it. “Wonder what your friends would think if they knew what you are, yeah? I don’t think they’d want to talk to you or look you in the eye anymore, think they’d probably just pass you around and stuff their dicks in your mouth and asshole--not that you’d mind--” Bucky whimpered and came around him.

Steve yanked his hand out of him like he was on fire and stood there for a minute, frozen. “Steve?” Bucky said. “Are you there?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “Just trying to figure out how I want to get off.”

“Well,” Bucky said, “you have...” he paused, trying to get his head together, “two options? More. But two pretty good options.”

“Well, don’t be conceited,” Steve said. “Maybe I don’t think you’re good enough to use right now.”

“Okay,” Bucky said. “Maybe I’m not.”

“I’m just gonna do it myself,” Steve said. “Shut up and pull your hair or something so I can look at you.”

Bucky did, and he was arching his back and generally trying to make himself pleasant to look at--which usually Steve would have found sweet, but he was too angry that Bucky had come thinking about other people. For fuck’s sake. Why was he even surprised? Bucky was kind and generous, and he tried to act like he especially liked Steve, but really anyone who could enjoy being fucked by Steve had to have no fucking standards at all.

Steve would show him, he thought--until he actually came on him, and Bucky didn’t even flinch when Steve’s jizz hit his back--he was a good person, and Steve went from feeling angry to just feeling bad. Heartbroken, even, if he was going to be childish about it. He shouldn’t have brought it up if he didn’t want to know.

And Bucky was still all soft and agreeable. “Thanks, Steve, it’s warm,” he said, turning his head even though he couldn’t look at him--”Do you want me to stand up now?”

“Yeah,” Steve said. Bucky was going to need a little guidance for the next few minutes, and Steve thought he could keep it together for that long. “Stand right here.” He took off the bathrobe and put it on Bucky. He’d really been looking forward to Bucky wearing his bathrobe, since it would be really short on him, but he wasn’t in the mood to enjoy it. “Wait a sec.”

He realized he should just have Bucky take the blindfold off, so he told him he could. “Put your shoes on,” he said, and went around picking Bucky’s clothes up from the roof. Bucky was looking around curiously.

“Nobody can see us, can they?” he said. “Except those two windows.”

“They’re both away,” Steve said. “Jim at work, Morrisons visiting family.”

Bucky lunged at him and Steve flinched, but he just wanted to push Steve against the stairwell and hug him. “You crazy asshole,” he said, his voice still soft and his breath warm against Steve’s ear. “You’re so smart, you know that?”

“Well, what else would I have done?” Steve said.

“Mm,” Bucky said, kissing his shoulder. As if that wasn’t bad enough he kept saying things like, “Love you, Steve, love you so goddamn much.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Steve mumbled. “Jesus. You think saying it makes it true?”

“What?”

“Look, sorry, never mind. Let me get you downstairs and in the bathtub.”

Bucky smiled. He had a whole thing about Steve giving him baths, but there was really no _thing_ about it--it wasn’t like Bucky couldn’t do it himself, but he was often distracted and clumsy after being fucked, especially if he’d been crying or frightened--and, well, if it was Steve’s mess on him it was only polite for Steve to clean it. Bucky kept pretty quiet on the walk downstairs and back into their apartment, since he didn’t want all the neighbors to hear him yelling about how good Steve had given it to him. Unfortunately Steve was not spared this line of conversation, as it started up again as soon as they came through their door.

The bath couldn’t have offered less relief. “Are you going to wash my hair?” Bucky demanded.

“No, your hair is clean. Don’t you think I’d remember coming in your hair?”

“It’s nice when you touch it,” Bucky complained, but he settled down and let Steve just soap up his back and shoulders. Admittedly he hadn’t come on Bucky’s shoulders either, but they always did it that way.

Sometimes they’d be doing this when Bucky had marks all over his body from Steve’s fingernails and teeth (well, sometimes belts or knives, but Steve preferred not to use objects when he had plenty of sharp edges of his own). If Bucky was marked up Steve would get distracted and stall on the bath. He’d make Bucky hold still so he could run his fingers over the marks. He’d press on the bruises and say, “How does that feel?” and Bucky would sigh and melt into him and say, “How do you think it feels, stupid? It hurts.”

Steve didn’t feel like doing that now. He just washed Bucky, or tried to. Bucky kept making it hard to get it finished. Steve would reach across him and Bucky would bump his face into Steve’s shoulder and try to grab him and kiss him on the cheek, getting Steve’s shirt all wet and soapy. Steve would pull back and Bucky would start flicking water at him. “Quit it,” Steve said.

“Your word is law,” Bucky said. He ostentatiously lowered his hands to his lap and looked at Steve brightly. “Did you have fun?”

“It was fine,” Steve said.

“Aw, Steve,” Bucky said. “If you wanted me to do something different you should’ve told me. You know how scattered I get.”

“Sorry,” Steve said.

“You don’t think I mind being scattered,” Bucky said. “And that...that was so clever, Steve, even for you--what’s wrong? You want me to do something clever for you too? I can be clever.”

“I’m fine, I got off already,” Steve said. “Just be quiet for a minute.” He poured water over Bucky’s shoulders and said, “It seemed like you liked what I was talking about.”

“That’s right,” Bucky said. “You’re real creative.”

“It seemed like you liked it when I was talking about you getting fucked by other guys.”

“Sure. You’re good at getting my buttons.” Bucky put his elbows on the sides of the tub and stretched languorously, his eyes half closed. “You probably could get me off talking about cottage cheese.”

“You came,” Steve said.

Bucky smiled at him. “If I wasn’t allowed, you could have said something. Am I in trouble now?”

“Is somebody else doing it to you?”

“What?” Bucky’s eyes opened. “ _No_.”

“I mean, it’s okay--I never said I was against it.”

“Well, I’d ask,” Bucky said, sitting up straight now, “I’d _ask_ you, if I wanted to, which I never would--” He looked flustered, like he was covering something up.

“You sure about that?” Steve said. “You seemed pretty interested in it when I was talking about it. You seem pretty quick to defend Harry Corner to me.”

“Are you trying to be funny?” Bucky said.

“Well, it’s true. What do you think of him?”

“Nothing. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, Steve!”

“He’d be a lot better at it, though, if he wanted to. He’s pretty big and doesn’t just sit at home all day eating cough drops or whatever he thinks I do.”

“Steve, he’s never even touched another guy, I’m sure about that.”

“Well, what about the guys you box with?” Bucky put his head down on his knees and for a second Steve thought it was some kind of capitulation--that he had, or wanted to. Just as suddenly he realized he was surprised, that he hadn’t fully believed what he had been saying, and that Bucky was trembling a little.

Steve put out his hand and brushed his shoulder but Bucky lifted his head up and said, “No. You don’t get to do it and then fix it. No way.” His eyes were wet.

“Oh, hell,” Steve said.

“Don’t ‘oh, hell’ me like it’s some kind of surprise. I ask you one thing. Don’t be shitty to me after. Not right after. Believe me, I’m not asking for some kind of ‘Oh Bucky, you’re so great, you were so wonderful’ because I know that’s never going to happen--”

“You never said you wanted anything like that,” Steve said.

“I don’t!” Bucky said. “Just don’t treat me like you hate me! Or if you have to, I don’t know, just wait an hour first. Wait an hour after you eat before you swim, and wait an hour after doing me before you treat me like I'm a piece of garbage you stepped in by accident.”

“I don’t think you’re a piece of garbage I stepped in by accident,” Steve said. “I step in you on purpose.” Bucky didn’t laugh. “Look, I’m sorry, I just don’t see what you get out of this sometimes.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” Bucky said. Steve had to admit he’d expected a little more tenderness or friendliness; even if he didn’t believe it, he was used to Bucky reassuring him when he said things like that. Instead Bucky said, “You have any idea how hard it is to love you? It’s like pouring water on the ground.”

“If it’s so hard for you, don’t do it,” Steve said. Bucky just looked at him, thoroughly unimpressed--the way he did when Steve occasionally tried to lie to him.

“Could you get me my bathrobe?” he said finally. Steve got it and held it out for him. Bucky stood up, shook himself a little bit, and pointedly took the bathrobe and put it on himself as he stepped out of the tub.

“You didn’t even dry off,” Steve said. “You’re dripping on the floor.”

“I hope it mildews and sets off your asthma,” Bucky said.

“What the hell? What kind of a thing is that to say?”

“I don’t know, what kind of thing is it to get mad at me for enjoying something _you_ said? I mean, that’s pretty twisted if you don’t mind me saying.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Steve said.

Bucky had sat on the edge of their bed; even wet and wearing a bathrobe, he looked better than Steve ever did. But he was twisting his hands together. “What is it like, then, Steve?” he said.

“I just wondered,” Steve said.

“For no fucking reason.”

“Look,” Steve said, “you can’t blame me. Half the stuff you like, I can’t even do, so--” Bucky sighed loudly. “What, you arguing with that?”

“Obviously no reason to,” Bucky said.

Steve came and sat next to him on the bed. “You shouldn’t feel--I don’t want you to feel obligated if I’m not enough.”

“It’s not that,” Bucky said. “Believe me, it’s not that.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“Well, it’s you.”

“You’ll have to explain what _that_ means.”

“I only...you’re enough. You think you’re not. That’s the problem.” Bucky looked so earnest and sad that Steve reached for him, but he moved away.

“If I am enough, then why does it matter if I think I’m not?”

“Well,” Bucky said, and he smiled weakly, “that’s what I thought, too, when this all started.”

///

A few days later, Steve--well, he could admit he’d been a little jealous and sharp, asking Bucky who he was going to see when he was getting ready to go out. Steve was always--well, he wasn’t always gentle to people. Bucky usually was, which was why Steve was surprised when he turned back toward him and said coldly, “I’m just going dancing, you miserable, pathetic asshole.”

He wasn’t kidding around. Steve tried to defend his own words to himself, later, theorizing that when sharp tongued people were vicious it didn’t count for as much. This was while he was sitting kind of stunned on his bed (Bucky had said he should have the bed) after Bucky had left.

The morning after that, he thought maybe Bucky would apologize. But he didn’t. He clapped Steve on the back like he was trying to be casual and sat down at the table with him. Steve slid over some toast with butter and jelly and Bucky waved it away. “You can’t ask me where I’m going,” he informed Steve.

“What if I’m worried about you?” Steve said. “What if I think you’re robbing a bank?”

“Well, I think they’d recognize me, since I work there,” Bucky said. “And you know what I mean.”

“Not really,” Steve said.

“Cut it out.”

“I guess I might know what you mean,” Steve said.

“Well, here’s what,” Bucky said. “You know, I will have that, thank you,” he said, taking the toast and crunching on it while he talked. “It’s not your business anymore who I go around with. It’s not my business who you do it with either, God have mercy on their souls--”

“Excuse me,” Steve said.

“We shouldn’t say shit like that either,” Bucky said. “I just--it’s not gonna work if we talk about it or act jealous of each other. We had some fun, but it’s not good anymore. Am I wrong?” He was very businesslike.

“You’re not wrong,” Steve said. In his mind he could see the whole thing moving away from him like a car or a boat--not so fast that it was gone in an instant, but still so quickly that it seemed to shrink.

“Hey,” Bucky said gently. “It’s no big thing, not really. We were friends for a long time before, and we’ll be friends for a long time after.”

“I know,” Steve said.

They shook hands, like someone was being fired.

 


	3. 1944

“Why don’t you go and get your boy, Cap,” Morita said after they had sat and talked in the bar for a while--Jim drinking a little, Steve drinking a lot, but only for tactical reasons. He didn’t want Jim to stop talking--he’d been telling Steve something delicate, about his sister, when he almost never talked about his family at all.

Steve felt like Jim was just fleeing the subject, trying to withdraw. He glanced over where he’d indicated and saw the usual and pleasant sight of Bucky laughing himself sick with a bunch of people he’d probably just met. “He’s fine,” he said.

“He’s fine now,” Morita corrected. “He’s still drinking.” With the carefulness of the almost plastered, Bucky slowly leaned over and said something to one of his new friends. Steve could see how hard he was working to enunciate, and (he suspected) to stay in the right language. He must have accomplished both things pretty admirably, because the guy knocked his head against the table laughing at Bucky’s joke.

“He’s just having fun,” Steve said and didn’t--well, Morita hadn’t known Bucky before, maybe there was nothing to say to him. Maybe only Steve knew. The point was, and Steve tried not to think about it, that if you knew someone who was almost liquid with sensitivity and just plain appreciation of life--not that he was always happy or anything like that, but just that he had a way of seeing and feeling everything--

The point was, seeing Bucky in certain shades of drunk was the only time Steve saw the Bucky he remembered. And it wasn’t like Bucky didn’t try really hard when he was sober. He didn’t just do his job; he was there for everyone, he smiled, he tried to make jokes. But he was somehow unfailingly grim even as he was joking. You could see him looking around you while he was talking, the way he followed every noise with a slight motion of his head. Steve didn’t think he slept hardly ever, either.

“You’re gonna be the only one who can carry him if he passes out,” Jim said. “So, you know, your funeral.”

“Ugh,” Steve said.

They were both watching Bucky for so long that he noticed and smiled at them. It was such a nice smile, and it was so different from how he usually looked, that a little jolt of pain went through Steve’s hands. It was putting him in mind of Bucky’s soft look, which Steve hadn’t seen in almost three years, long before any of this stuff started.

Bucky had been right--it had been easy to forget all about that. Steve missed it sometimes, but really, it went down in history much faster than it had any right to, especially when they were still living together and seeing each other every day. It was all over as if it had never been, and pretty soon it was easier for Steve to believe it was over than that Bucky would have stooped to such a thing in the first place.

For his part, Bucky never seemed to think or feel anything about it, after a few days. He stayed busy and cheerful. Steve thought, a little angrily, that this proved what he’d always suspected; Bucky didn’t really like that stuff, or at least, he didn’t need it like Steve did. But pretty soon Steve let go of it too. For a little while he dreamed plans and schemes of things to do to Bucky, and he woke up still calculating; but it didn’t go on for long.

“Look, he wants you,” Jim said. Bucky was crooking a finger at Steve, trying to get him to come over.

“I don’t see what for,” Steve said.

“Just go and get him. You’re the one who said we’re moving out tomorrow and I don’t want to deal with him being hungover. You know as well as I do how pissy he gets.”

“It’s true,” Steve said. Morita tilted his head. “Okay, okay,” Steve said. He looked back at Bucky and gestured him over instead. With his same slow half-blasted delicacy, Bucky got to his feet and with great affection said goodbye to all of the guys he’d been sitting with. Then he came over to Steve and Jim and practically fell down into the seat next to Steve--well, really he more or less fell on Steve, draping himself around him.

“My friends!” Bucky said. “You both are so sad looking. Why don’t you want to do anything fun? We just took out a whole bunch of Hydra assholes and pretty...soon...we have to get...moving again and...you’re not even having _fun_.” He put his face in Steve’s shoulder.

“What’s he speaking, French?” Morita said.

“He thinks he is,” Steve said in English.

“My French is _so good_ ,” Bucky said in the horrible French.

“It’s not, Bucky,” Steve said. “Jim, he’s telling us we’re sad and not fun, if you were wondering about it. Bucky, you’re shit at romance languages and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s just how you were made.”

“Probably why I’m so shit at romance, too,” Bucky said, picking his head up and boring his eyes into Steve with sudden solemness. Steve couldn’t tell if he was joking, but he was speaking English, so it was embarrassing in front of Morita either way.

“Okay, we’re going back to the base,” Steve told him. “You need to sleep and forget about this whole fun nonsense. Who ever heard of such a thing? ‘Fun.’ Did you just make that up?”

“Steve, I love you,” Bucky said as Steve was hauling him to his feet. “Good old Steve,” he said as Steve waved goodbye to Jim. “I bet you never been happy in your whole life, except making me miserable, huh?” he said, huffing a little as he leaned against Steve on the way out the door.

“That’s me, the old buzzkill,” Steve said. He didn’t mind putting an arm around Bucky to hold him up, but it was a little disconcerting how Bucky kept throwing all of his weight on him. Especially because he hadn’t been too drunk to stand up until Steve said they needed to leave. “Buck, come on, you’re just having fun--just walk. Don’t make me carry you.”

“I just wanted to see if you could,” Bucky said, taking most of his weight back onto himself, but still hanging on to Steve’s arm. “You could really carry me if you needed to, yeah? No, I know you can.” He knocked into Steve again as they started off down the dark street. “Throw me over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes, just put me wherever you want me, just--”

This was the other reason Steve didn’t like to intervene when Bucky was drinking, these days. “Stop bumping into me,” was all he managed to say.

“What are you gonna do about it?” Bucky said. “Come on, show me how strong you are,I want to see how hard you can hit--I want to see how fast you can knock me out if I make you mad. I’ve been _asking_ and you never want to--”

“Bucky, come on,” Steve said. “You’re drunk.” There weren’t a lot of people around, and Bucky had paused in walking, like he thought he was actually going to talk Steve into punching him in the face in the middle of the night in Belgium.

“Does that mean you’ll do it when I’m sober?”

“If you still want me to, sure,” Steve said.

“Okay,” Bucky said. He walked around and stood in front of Steve, and his posture changed, became sharper and more efficient. The grimness flooded back into his face.

“What?” Steve said.

“I'm sober,” Bucky said. "Come on, you said you'd do it."

“Have you been sober all of these times?”

“It makes you happy when you think I’m drunk,” Bucky said. “You stare at me when you think I’m drunk, and--”

“Bucky, _come on_ ,” Steve said. Worrying about Bucky was a normal part of life now, not too different from being big--it surprised him when he woke up, sometimes, but he adjusted and went on with his day. But this was making him panic a little. It wasn’t like Bucky had never been sneaky or a good actor, but--“Bucky, come on, you were pretending to get drunk? Were you faking every time? Why would you do that?”

“It’s not just for you,” Bucky said. “Don’t flatter yourself. Christ, you think you’re so fucking special now, don’t you? Sorry I don’t revolve around you as much as you want me to.”

“I don’t want you to revolve around me,” Steve said.

“Well, no need to keep rubbing my face in the fact that I’m not good enough for you,” Bucky said.

“Bucky, shut up,” Steve said. “You don’t--I mean, if pretending to be drunk is really doing it for you, who am I to take the wind out of your sails, but for fuck’s sake, I’m not going to demonstrate the effects of the serum on you.”

“You don’t think I can handle it?” Bucky said.

“Less arguing, more walking,” Steve said. “Maybe you’ll feel better after you sleep.”

“Fuck you,” Bucky said, but they finally started walking again. Then Bucky knocked into Steve again, putting most of his his weight on him, dropping his head onto his shoulder and his arm around him.

“Okay, fine,” Steve said. “But if you wanted to use me as a walking stick you could’ve just asked instead of the method acting.”

“Steve,” Bucky said.

“Bucky,” Steve said.

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky said, annoyed.

“Yeah, it’s still my name just like it was the first time you said it,” Steve said. “Ever considered the full sentences approach?”

Bucky went very quiet, which kind of relieved Steve for a minute, but as they kept walking it didn’t seem so good. Steve felt the itching of his usual worries, and in the absence of talk it got worse and worse. He squeezed Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky let what sounded like all the air out of his lungs.

“It’s not the end of the world,” Steve said, “whatever it is. I mean, as far as I know the world isn't ending so--”

Bucky said, “I thought maybe you’d do it if you thought I wouldn’t remember. I’ve been trying to play it up--pretending to have blackouts when I drink, and all--I thought maybe if I could get you to want to, and you thought I wouldn’t remember, that I wouldn’t be too clingy about it, that it would just be one time--”

“Bucky, that’s fucking crazy,” Steve said. “You realize how crazy that is, right?”

“I’m crazy,” Bucky said. “I don’t have a _choice_.”

His voice caught and he was shaking pretty hard, so Steve stopped trying to walk with him. He pulled him into an alley where it was easy to see that no one and nothing was coming toward them, and he leaned Bucky against a wall and hugged him for a minute, so he could calm down.

Things like this had happened to Bucky a few times after they left the factory, and even once on the way out. By now Steve had seen it happen to several guys, although he didn’t always feel like he knew how to help. He pulled back from Bucky but kept one hand, steadying, against his shoulder. “How’s this? You feeling better?”

“Don’t ask me,” Bucky said, “tell me.”

“You’re all right,” Steve said. Bucky nodded and rubbed a hand across his face.

“Oh, God,” he said. “I’m so embarrassed.”

“Oh, come on,” Steve said. He didn’t even really know what he was arguing about. He just didn’t want Bucky to think that he had to hide from him, or that he had to put on some kind of performance for other people. Especially Steve, but anyone--Bucky was so brave and competent, he’d done more than anyone had any right to expect; he had nothing to be embarrassed about.

Steve didn’t know what he could tell him. He wasn’t the type of person to go on about how great someone was, and he wasn’t sure if reassurance could do anything to help Bucky anyway. It was hard--knowing him well enough to see how messed up things were, but no longer knowing him well enough to know how to help him.

“Just,” Steve said. “If there’s anything I can ever do--”

Bucky rubbed his wrist across his eyes. “I asked you already.”

“What?”

“To hurt me.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I liked it before. You don’t believe I could like it now?” Steve started to answer, but Bucky interrupted. “Believe me, it’s not easy to ask you, but--I promise I won’t make it a problem. Just one time, if you want. Just a favor?” He smiled and squinted hopefully at Steve, then said more seriously, “Look, I’m never gonna tell you about what happened when I was in captivity--”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Steve said.

“There’s no point talking about it. But it feels like they took something out and I just think if you--if we could just do like we used to do--I've been thinking about it a lot. I just want to feel normal--" He broke off and waited.

“Okay, I’ll do it if you need me to,” Steve said.

Bucky lit up. “Really?”

“You really think it’ll help?”

Bucky nodded. His eyes were very big in his face. Steve nodded too, took Bucky by the shoulders, and moved him so Steve had the better sightlines.

"Okay," Steve said and kept his eyes on Bucky when he clicked his tongue. If Bucky didn't remember Steve would just give the order quickly, so Bucky didn't feel like he'd failed--but he was already on his knees, looking up at Steve with a strange and nervous expression.

And Steve was on his feet, looking down and feeling strange and nervous himself. He reached down and took hold of a little of Bucky's hair; he ran his thumb over his skinny cheekbone. "Just gonna hit you ten times, okay?"

"I want twenty," Bucky said.

Steve couldn't help laughing. "Fifteen, asshole."

Bucky grinned; he'd obviously been angling for fifteen. He always haggled, and Steve should have been on the lookout.

"You're a real smartass," Steve said. As he raised his other hand he realized he had no sense of how much force he should put into his blows. He'd often hit Bucky as hard as he could--it wasn't really difficult to give him black eyes and split lips, but it still took some effort and gave Steve a sense of accomplishment. Now if he hit him as hard as he could, he could probably kill him. Steve started giving himself practice slaps on his thighs.

"Steve, my face is down here," Bucky said.

"Shut up," Steve said. "I'm trying to figure out how hard I should hit you."

"I don't care."

"Well, _I_ care, dumbass."

"If you just kept yourself the old way, we wouldn't have to worry about this," Bucky grumbled. Steve slapped him. Bucky paused; a smile spread across his face. "Well, I can tell you that's not hard enough," he said.

" _No_ ," Steve said, and he yanked Bucky's head back so he had to look straight up at the sky as Steve leaned over him. It was a good move--Bucky was startled, struggling to get a hold of himself. Steve didn't plan to let him. "I'm doing you a _favor_ , Buck, I'm giving you a present." He yanked his hair again to keep him from being smart. "What do you say when somebody gives you something?"

"Thank you," Bucky said. He didn't sound reluctant or sarcastic; Steve was watching for any sign of impending backtalk.

"Let me be clear. I'm going to hit you how I want to hit you, not how you think is the best way--and you've got no cause to complain about that, because--well, why'd you ask me to do it?"

"Because you do it best, Steve," Bucky said, which wasn't the answer Steve had expected, but it was perfectly workable. He hit Bucky quite gently--it was lighter than the one he'd complained about, but he gasped like he was really winded. Steve had had to learn that if you messed with someone--well, with Bucky, anyway--you could create the illusion of force. It was surprise, and having his head pulled back.

"If you don't like how I do it," Steve said, smacking him a few times--twice on the other side of the face, one almost in the eye so he winced and flinched--"Don't flinch away from me, I know you can take it," Steve said--"If you don't like it, I'm happy to leave you to do it to yourself. You want that?"

"No," Bucky said.

"No what?" This again was an answer Steve wasn't particular about. It was bound to be good.

"No, sir. No, thank you. No, I don't want to," Bucky said, covering all his bases, and they grinned at each other.

"How many we got left?" Steve asked him.

"Eleven," Bucky said.

Steve let go of his head and stepped back a little bit, indicating how he wanted things to be. "You're gonna sit still for the rest of it--down on your knees, with your hands in your lap, right. That's fine." Then Steve made the mistake of really looking at him, looking at him too hard, and--Jesus.

Bucky was glowing. Even trying not to think about it Steve had remembered his softened up look, sometimes been reminded of it by various other Bucky expressions--but until now he'd forgotten exactly how good it was and how it overwhelmed him with a rush of--well, the word that seemed right was generosity, although it wasn't exactly generous, the kind of thing that feeling made him want to do. It was like he loved Bucky so much that he wanted to crush him into pieces.

Now Steve remembered, there were all these different varieties of the look--there were words he'd run through his mind, just to be able to keep track of all the categories--glittering, vibrating; the cracked-egg look (wet, shaky, limp). This was the glowing look, the eager almost nervous smile. Steve was looking at him for so long that he thought Bucky was going to talk back to him again--but he didn't. He tilted his head and just waited patiently, so Steve took his hair again--gently, just to hold his head up--and commenced slapping him again. Harder, now--he was getting a feel for the use of force in this body.

He paused, and--well, he was close to losing any measure of control because Bucky looked sort of deadly in his calm stillness, just waiting. "How many do you have left?" he asked.

"I have one left," Bucky said, which he knew Steve knew anyway.

"Okay," Steve said, pulling Bucky up a little so his chin was tilted up; "Where do you want it?"

Bucky said, "Wherever you want to give it to me, Steve," which was such a good answer that Steve let go of his hair and socked him in the mouth hard enough to make him lose his balance. He fell sideways and scrambled, grinning, back up into position.

"Okay," Steve said--he put his hand out to pull Bucky up, and Bucky pulled himself up and practically lunged at him to hug him. He'd have knocked Steve back, before--in fact, he'd come close to doing so in this kind of state. He squeezed Steve and buried his face in his neck, and it was so--

Well, it was his old way of being, the greedy, tactile happiness. Steve felt half stunned with gratitude, stiffly holding him and stroking his hair.

"Jesus, thank you," Bucky murmured, loosening his hold a bit and rubbing his face on Steve's shoulder one more time. Steve saw this gesture for what it was--sneaky crying.

"Well, you're welcome," he said, "but you don't have to call me Jesus."

"Would you shut _up,_ " Bucky said.

"Okay, okay. Let's get you back to the base, okay? Get you some shut eye." Bucky nodded. Steve put an arm on him to let him know it was okay if he wanted to slump on Steve's shoulder on the rest of the walk, like he'd been doing before.

But Bucky didn't want to. He walked on his own.

"Bucky," Steve said, after a few minutes.

"Yeah?" Bucky sounded perfectly friendly.

"Why did we--stop doing that stuff?"

Bucky sighed--not unhappily, just pausing to put the answer together. "I don't know," he said finally. "I guess you didn't really like it."

"I don't--I definitely don't think that could have been it," Steve managed to say.

"Yeah, you liked it, but--it was different for you." Bucky glanced at him, unperturbed by whatever he saw in Steve's face. He wasn't bothered talking about this. "You didn't need it as much as I did. Maybe that's the nature of the thing."

"You didn't need it as much as _I_ did," Steve said.

"No," Bucky said. "That's not true."

"I was, uh." They were getting within sight of the base, so anything they decided on would have to be done soon. "If you--I mean, with you being so drunk, maybe you need to stay in my room, so I can take care of you. What do you think? Even if they don't believe me, they can't discharge me for something like that."

Bucky looked at him--a little coolly, sidelong--and fell drunkenly against him again.

///

The second time Bucky blew him for the first time was about an hour later, and they started off following Steve's old rules to the letter. It wasn't like Steve had ever cared if Bucky opened his fly with his teeth or kissed the head of Steve's dick before he started sucking, but it made a good format for yelling at him. Steve vividly remembered kicking Bucky in the ribs with his stocking feet while he lay cringing on the floor. Steve had been yelling something like, "Sucking dick is the only thing you're good for and you can't even do it right!" It had been overblown but fun--they'd been really young, and Bucky had sobbed and begged for him, and joked about it with him later, both of them a little embarrassed.

Now Steve just watched him curiously to see if he could remember. He was leaning against the wall of his room--they'd given him a pretty nice room--and Bucky was naked and kneeling while Steve slowly rubbed all the pomade out of his hair.

Steve had tried to strip Bucky himself, laying him down on the bed and pinning him there while he yanked down his pants and shorts--but Bucky said, "Hey, wait a minute."

In the old days Steve would have railroaded over that, but things were different enough that he waited. Bucky smiled nervously up at him.

"Just a little hiccup," he said. "It's better if I do that myself. Hope you don't mind."

"Of course I don't," Steve said.

But he got a little serious as he was watching Bucky take off his clothes. "What," Bucky said, "now that you see it in color you don't like it as much?"

"What did they do to you?" Steve asked. Bucky's face tightened--a moment ago he'd been halfway softened up, but now he looked like he was wearing a mask.

"You can't fix it," he said, "and you don't need to know."

"Okay," Steve said. "Come here."

Bucky fell into the blowjob smoothly for a minute, but after the first few moves he stopped, dropped his right hand to fidget on his hip, and said, "I'm sorry, Steve, I forgot how you like it." He could have made it fun--squirming, begging for mercy--but he sounded flat and bored instead; not nervous, disappointed.

"That's fine," Steve said, and launched into his contingency plan. "You can still take me all the way in, can't you?" Bucky nodded. Steve had him put his head back, and held it while he slowly filled Bucky's mouth with his dick. Bucky didn't make any trouble; he took it as politely as Steve had taught him to in 1938. "This'll be fine," Steve said. "Clasp your hands behind your back."

Bucky did as asked, moving delicately since his throat was jammed up; Steve could see the whites of his eyes. He thought Bucky looked cute this way, like a butterfly on a corkboard.

Steve got a good grip on Bucky's head before realizing his hair would be a lot more fun. He took a bunch of it in his hands and used it to pull Bucky off of his dick, so just the head was in his mouth; then he pulled him all the way back on it. He did it a few more times, slowly, then sped up once he had the hang of it.

"Stop that," he snapped when he realized Bucky was moving with him to avoid the pain of being pulled around by his hair. "Stay still. I'm going to move you and you're going to let me. Look at me."

Bucky looked at him. His eyes were kind of wet, but he was following.

"You don't do anything--I'm gonna give you how much I want you to have. Just me, not you, you don't have any control." Once Bucky got it, Steve started pulling him on and off again, and half-thrusting too. It was funny how he wasn't really used to thrusting, and it surprised him that it didn't hurt his back. "There's a good boy," he said, "just sit back and let me use you." Bucky shuddered and came all over Steve's shoes. "Really?" Steve said. "God, you're _pathetic_ ," but he didn't take long either.

Afterwards he got down on the floor and hugged Bucky so he wouldn't feel weird. Obviously he'd miscalculated somewhere, though, because instead of cuddling up to him Bucky just rubbed his face on Steve's shoulder and sat up straight and said, "Maybe this isn't such a good idea."

Typically Steve wasn't the type to argue with rejection. "Well, okay, if you don't want to," he said, and Bucky winced, so he added, "But how come, though?"

Bucky dragged his eyes up to him and said sort of miserably, "Because I'm stupid."

"Well that's never stopped you before," Steve said.

Bucky exhaled. He said, slowly, "I think we stopped because I sort of loved you too much, and you didn't like it. You thought it was stupid of me, I guess."

"No, that's not right," Steve said. "It wasn't like that."

"What was it like then?" Bucky said.

"I don't know," Steve said. He'd done such a good job putting it out of his mind--well, not all the way out, but into the angry place of his mind that spurred him to try and fight harder. Bucky was one of the many things he hadn't been good enough to have--really, one of the only things he'd even gotten to have for a while, which should have been nice, but it just stung harder that he hadn't been up to the task.

Bucky feeling rejected by him was something he couldn't fathom. He'd never have guessed and couldn't quite believe it, even being told. "It wasn't like that," he said again.

"But you say you don't know what happened," Bucky said.

"I don't, but I know I feel the same about you. You know that, right? Don't be stupid." Steve pulled Bucky's head into his lap and Bucky let him; he started massaging Bucky's scalp. God knew he needed it. "And like you said, maybe it is stupid to feel like that, but you know. Oh, well."

"Oh, well," Bucky said.

"Okay?" Steve said.

"Okay, okay," Bucky said.

"Because someone still needs to lick my shoes clean," Steve said.

///

So, having started up again, they continued whenever they had a chance. Steve didn't know if it was helping Bucky in the grand scheme of things, but it wasn't hurting him, so it probably didn't matter--they enjoyed themselves. The more quiet and dark and careful Bucky was the rest of the time, the more he came to life when Steve was mean to him. He'd laugh and sigh, tremble heavily and lie loose limbed in Steve's tent after, nuzzling into his neck.

It turned out, to Steve's surprise, that it still was mostly meanness--he was rough, insulting, made impossible demands. He'd always thought that if he was bigger and stronger he'd throw Bucky around more, hold him down, overpower him--but most of that stuff turned out to be problems.

That was sort of what Bucky called them. "Problem," he'd say, and Steve would stop and wait a minute for him to explain. Bucky often apologized for telling Steve what to do, which Steve just rolled his eyes at until he stopped. It wasn't hard to put together. He didn't like being held down, overpowered, or grabbed; and there were some other things that were harder to categorize.

There was the added obstacle that Bucky tended to get mad if Steve asked him too much about the problems or tried to predict what they were going to be. If Steve wasn't sure about something, he'd just tell Bucky what to do to himself. That was perfectly safe, and they already liked it. It was kind of like what they used to do.

Sometimes Steve wouldn't touch Bucky, just stand apart from him and watch him and tell him to jerk himself a little, not too much, claw himself, twist his nipple, pull his hair. Then at a certain point Steve would step over to him and Bucky would slump into his arms, hungrily lovely and boneless, and let Steve take over the job of hurting him. He was so perfect in those moments, limp and sweet and whining both when Steve hurt him and whenever he occasionally briefly stopped, that Steve could almost forget how grim he was the rest of the time.

Sometimes Bucky would fall apart if Steve had done something really cruel or rough to him, but it was like it was there already, like Steve was just poking a hole in him and letting something out. Steve insisted on sleeping together on those nights, and Bucky insisted on apologizing to him in little litanies--for causing problems, for being difficult, for not being as good as he once had been.

"Stop talking nonsense," was what Steve said at first, but it kept on happening. "Look," he finally said one time, and then stopped. He didn't see the point of screaming it all at the top of his lungs, when it seemed so obvious. "You do pretty good for me, and you always did. The way you're talking about it is just erroneous. It doesn't work like you think."

"How's it work?" Bucky said.

"I don't know," Steve said. Bucky snorted. It was true Steve often gave answers like that. But it wasn't because he didn't mean what he said; it was just that he couldn't explain it.

It was just that there wasn't a list of things Steve wanted to inflict on someone. He wanted results--the sweet, melted looks, sobbing, shivering, giggling and gasping for breath. He liked obedience and patience too, and he particularly liked how all those things looked on Bucky. Restraining him didn't produce any of the desired reactions--it flattened him out. So it didn't interest Steve.

"If I just wanted to punch something, I could punch a pillow," he said. "You know?"

Bucky looked quizzical, so Steve initiated an adolescent pinching game. He held himself over Bucky who lay on his pallet, slowly pulled down his blankets, and pinched Bucky with his fingernails in each new uncovered place. Bucky wasn't allowed to defend himself, which included trying to cover himself or moving away. He struggled with it, flinching when Steve dug into his nipples and stomach and hips; but he was on point. He kept himself in position for it and whenever Steve met his eyes Bucky was watching him intently, ready for any orders he might give. Steve reached for Bucky's balls and Bucky winced, but steeled himself and spread his legs to give Steve better access to hurt him.

"See," Steve said, "that's what I like," and he rolled off of Bucky. "We need to get going."

"But Steve," Bucky said, "I need to come."

"What a disgusting thing to say," Steve said. "You don't _need_ to come, you're not an animal. You're a human being, and you'll come when I tell you it's okay."

///

Since there was an uneven number of Commandos, Steve used to take the watch twice in a row. He didn't need the sleep like the other guys did, so it only seemed fair.

He wondered if maybe he did need the sleep, after all, when he looked up and Bucky was sitting next to him lighting a cigarette. "Dernier sleeps way too hard, it's not safe," he informed Steve without so much as a by your leave.

"Anybody would sleep through you," Steve said. "God but you're eerie sometimes."

"Oh, well," Bucky said. "I needed the cigarettes."

"What's he going to say when he finds them missing?"

"I don't know, but I'm gonna say you need better reflexes, pal, or don't come crying to me when someone kills you in your sleep." Bucky shrugged and blew smoke in Steve's face. "This is for you," he told him, producing a chocolate bar from one of his pockets.

"So whose ration is that?"

"Oh, come on, you don't want to know how the sausage is made," Bucky said. "Okay, fine, it's my ration."

"So why do I get it?"

"Well, technically I'm yours so it's your ration," Bucky said, "and besides, I know you love chocolate and you don't have to worry about sugar anymore, so eat up."

This was true. Steve took the chocolate and gave Bucky a little slap on the wrist for good behavior. "So what if I asked for the cigarettes?"

"They're yours," Bucky said, but he didn't hand them over because he knew that Steve didn't smoke and was just being difficult on purpose.

Steve started into his chocolate and said, just enjoying the concept, "What if I didn't let you smoke anything ever again?"

"Can I chew tobacco?"

"No."

"I'd probably have to throw you over, then," Bucky said. "You just aren't worth it."

"Oh, well, fair enough," Steve said. Bucky looked at him curiously.

"Does that bother you?"

"What?"

"Me talking about throwing you over."

"No," Steve said. "I'm not gonna make you give up tobacco, so I don't really have anything to worry about."

Bucky was quiet, and when Steve looked at him the curious look had gone sort of solemn. "I used to be so worried, I'd never joke about that kind of thing," he said, "when we were younger, I was so scared of making you jealous or making you think I was gonna leave--"

"You're joking," Steve said. "You couldn't have been scared of me then."

"Correction, that's what _you_ thought," Bucky said.

"So?" Steve said.

"So you thought you couldn't really hurt me and you hurt me all the time," Bucky said, "and some of it was wasn't...some of it I didn't like, and I couldn't make you stop--"

"I did things you didn't want?" Steve was startled. He'd always been pretty careful about watching how Bucky was reacting to things. He hadn't thought it was hard to manage him, really.

"Not during, after," Bucky said. He made business out of taking a deep long drag on his cigarette and holding it in front of his face.

"Oh," Steve said. He remembered how it had ended, by now--jealousy, Bucky tearing up in the bathtub, _do you have any idea how hard it is to love you_?

"It seems stupid now," Bucky said, "but I thought that you thought I was garbage, that everything I did for you was _worse_ than garbage, because you didn't believe in it. I'd try to be good for you and then in about three seconds you'd be bitching about how you couldn't possibly be doing it for me because you were little and, you know, not in the best health--when that really never mattered to me at all--"

"Well, you can't say it doesn't  _matter_ ," Steve said. "I mean, look me in the eye and say you don't like me at least a little better like this. We never have to work around anything, and it must help you get there a little, with me looking like more of a threat--"

"Now I wish I didn't give you my chocolate," Bucky said. "For shit's sake, Steve, anyone can--anyone can force someone down on a bed or a table. Anyone can do that to anyone, it's not personal, and it's not what I need you for." Steve started to say something but Bucky said, "And I'd never have let it start in '38 if I wanted someone big because guess what, Steve, you weren't. You were Steve-sized, you still are, and that's the size that does it for me, okay?"

"Is that a line?"

"Nope," Bucky said. "Lord have mercy, it's unfortunately the truth."

"I didn't understand you felt that way," Steve said.

"Well, I can see why," Bucky said. "I only told you a thousand times. How could I possibly have been telling the truth when you knew for certain I was lying?"

"Oh," Steve said.

"It really is stupid to talk about now, though," Bucky said. "Don't know why I brought it up. I have bigger problems now than you being stupid."

"It really got to you," Steve said. "I didn't treat you too well, did I?"

"Well, no, you didn't," Bucky said. "I'm not saying I was an expert on everything that happened to you, either, but I always meant what I said. Sure I could have tried to understand you better--"

"No," Steve said. "I was wrong."

"I think my ears are going," Bucky said.

///

Bucky started tapping Steve on the arm--he didn’t even say it. Steve had him laid out on his jacket in a small clearing in the woods, a ways from camp, and he had him naked on his back with his legs spread. Steve had taken hold of his legs to push them up on his stomach, so he could fuck him, and Bucky started tapping.

“Problem?” Steve said.

“Sorry,” Bucky said.

“It’s the position?”

Steve worried that even this phrasing might be more specific than Bucky would tolerate. It was hell talking about it with him. Steve had identified some of the factors--being stripped, being held down, being on his back--so he was pretty sure that in this case Bucky either had a problem with being on his back, with Steve moving his legs around, or both.

But Bucky would get mad if he thought Steve knew any of the details, because he didn’t think that Steve should know anything about it. And, well, Steve didn’t _deserve_ to know anything, but he couldn’t help but think he’d be able to be a better friend, and work with Bucky better, if there wasn’t this constant air of mystery about what had happened to him.

“You know,” Bucky said, “if you do me on my stomach you could rub my face in the dirt, you could make me lick the ground, you could pick my head up and slam it into the ground--”

“Okay, flip over, I can’t argue with that,” Steve said. He didn’t want to give Bucky a concussion but all the dirt stuff was pretty appealing. Before he even started trying to fuck him again he just sat next to Bucky’s prone body for a while, intermittently spanking him, pinching him, and pushing his face into the ground.

“Hey, Steve,” Bucky said, lifting his head up a little and spitting out dirt, “didn’t you make me eat a worm once?”

“Ew,” Steve said. “Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t ask. You can be sort of intimidating, you know.”

“I was probably just a kid.”

“I’m pretty sure we were old enough that you jerked off on my face after. Which tasted worse than the worm due to your poor nutrition. Ow, ow, ow, Steve, please, just fuck me, you don’t realize how sharp your fingernails are!”

Steve knew perfectly well; he kept them like that on purpose. When he was small they were one of the only really good weapons he had to use on Bucky, and they still were pretty useful--to say nothing of the nostalgia factor.

“Oh, please please please, that’s the way I want it,” Bucky started caterwauling as soon as Steve was fucking him.

“God, Bucky, shut up,” Steve said. “I know that’s the way you want it or I wouldn’t be doing it.”

“It’s perfect, Steve, it’s so good, you give it to me so good, just what I deserve--”

Steve had to pause a minute to pull Bucky’s head back by the hair and put his hand over his mouth. “Shut up. You think I want a reminder there’s a person attached to this hole?”

“I--”

“No. Nod or shake your head.”

Bucky shook his head and squeaked a little when Steve didn’t give him any slack on his hair.

“Because I don’t. Nice thing about doing you on your stomach in the dark is, I don’t have to look at your ugly face or hear any of the stupid things you say, and I can just enjoy your warm wet asshole, which, I’m sorry to tell you, is the only worthwhile part about you and I’d really appreciate it if you would just let--me--use--you--” Steve dropped Bucky’s hair and gave him a series of smacks on the back of the head. “Let me use your asshole, and don’t you _dare_ say anything else while I’m fucking you, you ugly, miserable piece of shit.”

Bucky made a sad little noise, which Steve deemed acceptable since it went straight to his dick, and he got down to business fucking Bucky into the dirt. The only noises Bucky was making were involuntary ones, little grunts and yelps of discomfort as Steve shoved his face and body into the hard ground.

“ _Fuck_ , that’s good,” he couldn’t help saying, “fuck, that’s a nice tight hole, fuck, you _are_ good at taking it, I’ll give you that--what are you, Buck?”

“I,” Bucky said in a small voice, and Steve was on the verge of losing it because he knew he’d ground Bucky down so far that he couldn’t talk anymore, was struggling desperately to put words together because Steve had told him to. God, all Steve wanted was to just ruin him and keep him broken like this all the time. “I,” Bucky said, “I’m your whore,” and he honest to God _sniffled_ , like he was so heartbroken he couldn’t stand it. Steve came harder than he ever had in his life, and it felt like it lasted forever, pumping into Bucky who was being so good and patient and crying for him, lying smashed on the ground while Steve filled him up.

“Oh, _God_ ,” Steve said. He almost collapsed on top of Bucky but realized in a split second that might be a problem, so he pulled his pants up instead and lay on his side next to Bucky, half spooning him. Bucky bumped his head against Steve’s face. “Ew, your face is all dirty,” Steve said. He kissed Bucky on the cheek, ruffling his hair. “Okay, you earned your keep, get on your side.”

They lay face to face and Steve put one arm over Bucky’s shoulders and the other hand on his dick. He’d precome, a lot--Steve didn’t think he’d really been able to rub himself on the ground, which would probably have been too uncomfortable to feel good anyway. But Bucky could get pretty far and sometimes all the way just from being fucked, or even just from being treated roughly. Oh, he was perfect. Even Steve couldn’t see him that well, it was so dark, but he could see how slack jawed he was.

“Talk to me,” Steve said, wrapping his hand around Bucky’s dick. “You can talk now.”

Bucky shuddered, and he did talk, but it was a gasping, slurred mess. “Please, Steve,” he said, and “I’m yours, I’m all yours, please let me be all yours,” and finally, “please, Steve, please use me. You got to use me, please, Steve, I need it, please use me all the way up,” and he cried into Steve’s neck when he came.

Steve held him there for a while. He sat up just for a second, to try to cover up Bucky with some of his shed clothes, and Bucky whimpered when he did that. “No, I’m not leaving, it’s okay,” Steve said. He laid back down and wrapped Bucky in his arms and held him against him. “I can use you up,” he said. “Might take a while, but I’m definitely on the case.” Bucky was still crying, silently, tears leaking out onto Steve’s skin. “You were excellent tonight, you know,” Steve said.

“Mm?” Bucky said. “You’re...Steve. No. I." He paused, getting his thoughts together. "You're excellent too."

“Oh no, not this again,” Steve said.

When Bucky got his words back Steve helped him get dressed, and they walked back to the camp arm in arm. "Well I guess I finally found out how strong you are," Bucky said. "I feel like I got hit by a train."

"You might not be able to walk on your own anymore, poor thing."

"That's right," Bucky said. He leaned hard on Steve, laying his head back on his shoulder. He'd stopped walking, so Steve had to pull him along. Steve loved being able to take so much of his weight.

"You think I could ever carry you, or would that be a problem?"

"Hmm," Bucky said.

"Let's not then," Steve said.

"No, I'll think about it. There's probably a way I can do it--I'll tell you what I can come up with."

"That's okay," Steve said. "I should be the one doing the planning around here, you don't have to work on coming up with ideas for me."

Bucky laughed at him, falling against him. "Such a sense of responsibility you got there. You don't ever want me to bear the burden of being in charge of anything, huh?"

"Well, who knows what would happen. You're as dumb as a box of rocks."

There was a long pause so Steve started to wonder if he'd actually gone too far. Then Bucky said, "So you don't mind that I couldn't do it the way you wanted?"

"There's no one way I want it," Steve said automatically; but it was true.

"If there's no one way you want it why are you so bossy?"

"Not the same and you know it," Steve said, "and didn't we already talk about this whole thing?"

"We didn't talk, you just pinched me," Bucky said.

"Well," Steve said, "I don't know how you want me to say it but it just doesn't matter. I mean I'm pissed about what happened to you but I just don't give a fuck if you need to avoid certain things. It's less than nothing."

"It must get on you, though," Bucky went on, "having to be patient when I can't do stuff. I'm grateful you put up with me."

Steve recoiled. "You have nothing to be _grateful_ for! _Jesus_. I'm not being _patient_ because there's nothing difficult about the fact that you're--"

"So you're not just being charitable?" Bucky said.

"What?"

Bucky was laughing at him, teeth startlingly white in his dirty face.

"Oh, ha ha," Steve said.

"Took you a while to get it."

"You're such an asshole."

Bucky put his arm back around him and kissed his cheek. "It doesn't feel good, though, does it?" he said.

"No," Steve said.

///

One day Steve woke up a few minutes early, and it occurred to him he should probably get Bucky off. He hadn't let him come for more than a week, because it was funny how upset Bucky got about it. But it was coming up on too long.

Bucky was deeply asleep, and Steve ran through the options of how to wake him up. If he shook him awake Bucky would think they were being ambushed (not unreasonably--Steve would have thought the same). Steve would have kissed him but he'd already learned his lesson about putting things in Bucky's mouth when he was asleep. He settled for licking his ear, which meant Bucky woke up squinting amusedly at him. "What the fuck, Steve?" he said muzzily.

"You're coming this morning," Steve said.

"Oh good!" Bucky said, waking up in a flash. "Where's it coming from?"

"Just my hand, nothing fancy. Get it wet for me." Bucky obediently slobbered on Steve's hand while trying to pull down his own pants at the same time. "You could try to be a little more patient," Steve said.

"I'm patient!" Bucky said. "I'm _excellent_."

Steve was never going to live that down. "You're not patient at all," he said. As soon as Steve's hand touched his cock, Bucky's whole body went tense and glimmering, his hips desperately trying not to thrust. Steve tended to be a real bastard about not letting Bucky move without permission. But they didn't have much time, so he said, "You can move as much as you want." Bucky looked suspicious. "No, really, you really can. Hey." Steve leaned over him and kissed him while he jerked him off.

It wasn't _just_ that it was funny to make Bucky upset. Going without made him this great picture of squealing desperation when he was actually allowed to have it. He was already making wounded noises, which made Steve want to freeze and make him beg for it to keep going--but he'd resolved to do it pretty kindly, for once.

"Come on, you can come whenever you want," he said in between kisses, "don't know why you're making those dumb noises though--don't you have any self-respect? God, you're _pathetic_ ," he said when Bucky started making them even louder. Bucky was squirming, trying to push his neck up at Steve's face, so Steve could only guess he wanted him to bite it. He guessed right.

Afterwards Bucky wanted to suck him, but they really didn't have time and Steve didn't particularly care about it either. He got it whenever he wanted it, after all. Instead he just lay there and watched Bucky get dressed for the day.

Steve never really thought about how people looked--well, not unless he was nervous--but sometimes he did notice that Bucky was startlingly handsome. It startled him, at least.

It used to be like a rock in his shoe. But now it felt more like waking up and seeing sunlight come in the window and shine a certain way on the wall. A surprise. Your eyes just getting to rest on something that was pretty much perfect--something you hadn’t planned for and definitely hadn’t earned.

He didn’t need Bucky to look this good, but it was a perk.

“Hey, Buck,” he said, and Bucky looked over at him and waited. He really was patient. “You know I don’t like to run my mouth complimenting people or anything like that.”

“Yeah, I know,” Bucky said.

“Well...you know what I think of you.” His voice stupidly almost caught as he said it. “You know what you are to me, right?”

“Of course I know, Steve,” Bucky said. “I’m not stupid.” He kissed Steve on the forehead and went outside.

 

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